All posts by Kevin Hearne

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Audiobook Month

Image from APA (www.audiopub.org)

Image from APA (www.audiopub.org)

June is Audiobook month (JIAM 2013). The audiobook community is giving back by teaming with the Going Public Project by offering a serialized audio story collection. All proceeds will go to Reach Out and Read literacy advocacy organization. Throughout June, 1-2 stories will be released each day on the Going Public blog and on author/book blogs. The story will be free (online only – no downloads) for one week. In collaboration with Blackstone Audio, all the stories will be available for download via Downpour. The full compilation will be ready June 30th.

The full schedule of the story release dates and narrators are at Going Public. Engineering and Mastering are provided by Jeffrey Kafer and SpringBrook Audio. Graphic design provided by f power design and published by Blackstone Audio. Project coordination and executive production by Xe Sands. (written by Mary Freeman)

lukedanielsI am so pleased to welcome Luke Daniels to the blog! Many of you already know Luke as the voice of the Iron Druid Chronicles and you’ve told me how much you enjoy his work. I’m fantastically lucky to have him narrating the series.

Hailing from a family of performers, Luke Daniels is an audiobook narrator with close to 200 books recorded. In 2012, Audible named Luke Narrator of the Year. He has been Audie nominated twice and won several Earphones Awards. Luke is also a classically trained actor and has performed professionally for theatres throughout the US, As well as in many television, radio, and film roles.

Luke’s free story and my interview with him are below, and there’s a whole bunch of other great stuff for you to explore during Audiobook Month. I mean lookit: Yesterday there was this spiffy story over at Devourer of Books and tomorrow there will be two spiffy things out there on the Interwebs, one at Bermuda Onion and another at Lakeside Musing. And Luke, the man himself, has a post up at the Going Public site.

Luke recorded a fairy tale of about forty minutes in length that you can stream for free here for a week!

If you’d like to download that fabulous story instead of stream it and at the same time support the childhood literacy charity Reach Out and Read, please purchase it from Downpour here.

 

And so we begin…
KH: First—thank you, Luke, for doing such an excellent job bringing the Iron Druid Chronicles to life. I feel tremendously fortunate to have you behind the microphone, and I have to tell you that you have a lot of fans out there. They don’t have an easy way to reach you so they let me know how much they’ve enjoyed your work, and I just wanted to pass that on. You’re awesome. In fact, I think it’s safe to say, in the parlance of the 90s, you are the shiznit.

 

LD: Well, well, well if it isn’t the mastermind himself!! The world builder! The IDC Braintrust! Bacon privateer and all around dude-lee-ness…. K-Rock. The Hearne-Burn. Kevin “sausage ambassador” Hearne!!!! Seriously, dude. You are my fave. For reals. I have such a blast reading your stuff it’s a little scary. Like we were both forged from the same primordial bacon fat. Like broth-ahs from anudda mudda. Oh boy. So…. What was the question? Hold on while I re-read it…Ok. I’m Back. Soooooo, long story short. There wasn’t really a question so I’ll sayyyyyy….. THANK YOU! Seriously, I am incredibly fortunate to get to bring my small part to this world of yours. Whatevs you need to keep on rockin and crankin these stories out, you let me know. Daddy will provide. :D

 

KH: How long does it take you to record one of my books—it’s longer than the actual recording time, right? Multiple takes and pauses for drinks and lavish luncheons of boar sausage and kielbasa?

 

LD: Ahhhhhh…. Lets see. Well, ya wanna know a secret? I don’t really eat any more while I record. I find it keeps my focus sharper. When I eat during a recording session I get kinda logy*, and well, burpy. *editor’s note: did you know this word is pronounced “low-gee.” I always said “lah-gee.” Until I started narrating that is. You would be AMAZED how many words I’ve discovered I pronounced incorrectly all my life. Editor’s note, out. Shoot. While writing the editor’s note (spoiler alert! Yes! I am the aforementioned “editor!”) I forgot the question. Bear with me… Ok. I’m back. Sooooo… It takes about three grueling, mind numbing days… Just kidding… About it being grueling… Not about the three days. I usually start about 8:30. Record a couple of hours. Take a fifteen. Then another couple hours. Then I drink some juice for lunch.* *editor’s note: I should be clear. I have gotten into juicing. (The kind with fruits and veggies. Not tiny wieners.) So I will juice a bunch of stuff in the morning then drink that throughout the day to keep my energy up and to dampen any rumbly empty tummy noises. Editor’s note, out. After lunch I record another couple of hours. Take a break. Then usually another hour and a half to two hours and I. am. done-zo. And then… Well, I eat my weight in whatever I can find…

KH: What’s your prep like before you go in to narrate a book? And when you begin recording, do you have a script marked up with notes or what?

 

LD: Thank you techno gods for the all mighty IPad! It has made my life soooooo much easier. Before I used have to carry this with me wherever I went.

ipad
Now, using the iPad, I read and mark-up a digital script ahead of time; then narrate from the iPad in the studio. (We used to have to try and mask the noise of turning pages while recording. Now there’s a lost art!) When I mark up a script beforehand I am looking at characters and trying to get a feel for tone and the writer’s rhythm, or voice. I find yours very easy to slip into. Your writing flows well which makes a book much easier to narrate. Now pardon me while I wipe this brown shmutz off my nose…..

KH: Heh! Do you have secret recipes for voice-soothing teas that you drink to preserve your voice? How about exotic salves or unguents that you apply each night to your throat? Maybe a dodgy ritual involving honey and eucalyptus? Burnt offerings of chamomile to a stone idol?

LD: Whiskey. Whiskey. And whiskey… Seriously I only narrate when I’m completely knackered. And naked, for that matter. Yeah it’s messy, but whatever gets the job done, right!? Ok so to seriously answer your question. Neti Pots are fab if I’m coming down with something. I live in Michigan and during our nine-month long winters I have to work hard not to get colds, cause they can really make recording difficult, if not impossible. Other than that I like hot water with lemon and honey. Simple. Good.

KH: Have you ever ululated? I’ve always wanted to ask you that. If so, what effect did it have on those around you? Were they frightened? Uplifted? Stricken by a sense of existential despair because they can’t ululate as well as you?

LD: Great big bears! I just listened to this lady do it on YouTube and my dog about pooped his pants. (Yeah he wears pants! He’s not a savage! sheesh.) That lady was freakin loud! Umm..so, I actually have done this. Or a version of it. I went to grad school for theatre and performance, so lets just say our voice classes were FULL of not just ululating, but undulating, convulsing, and all manner of vocal AND physical quivering. Yeah. Grad school was awesome.

KH: Do you have a dream project or five—some work you’d like to have a crack at narrating?

LD: I would love to record some Shakespeare. Both with a full cast and solo. His language is so aural it really translates well to an audio based medium. That’s why I relish Leif and Atticus’ Shakespearean jousting. I did some Cliffs Notes audiobooks and a few of them were Shakespeare. Lets just say, I’m pretty sure whenever they included a direct quote from the text I shmacted the hell out of it. Other than the bard, I’d like to do more full-cast recordings and radio plays. I would loooooove to revive The Shadow series. (Minus the incredibly racist overtones.) I would like to do a podcast. Omg! What about an IDC podcast!? Then special “wacky” guests can visit! Genius! My five-year old self is all about it. And since that 5 year old self is really my everyday self, I say let’s do it!

KH: You give distinct voices to quite a few characters in my series, and some of them have specific accents. Lots of people are interested in how you develop those. Are these accents coming naturally to you, or are you coaching yourself somehow, and if so, how?

LD: I’m lucky that I have a good ear for them. It’s also something I’ve always been interested in. As a kid I was always doing voices and coming up with characters. Some that I still use in books today. I remember I used to record my own radio shows at home with different “wacky” guests. I also used to fall asleep at night listening on my Walkman to old radio dramas like The Shadow and Superman. I’m pretty sure that had a big effect on me as well. Even now I’m constantly listening to people’s voices and trying to mimic them. Try this, next time you’re watching TV close your eyes and just listen to the voices. You’ll be surprised. A lot of people sound more different than you think. A lot of people sound like Muppets. But when I’m coming up with characters for a book I’m trying to find a natural tone that will support the character the author has established. A lot of it is playing intention too. If you discover what the character wants, what they are trying to do in the scene, it will naturally inform your voice. Plus, good writers, yes K-Hernia I’m including you in that statement, write dialogue that suits the particular character speaking it. Again, I thank you for making my job EZ

KH: Do you read the story in sequence, switching back and forth between the voices, or do you read in pieces and then splice it together?

LD: Sequence. Start to finish. Cover to cover, so to speak. I actually really enjoy the switching back and forth in the moment. I think it speaks to my, shall we say… Diverse mercurial nature? (that’s a euphemism for multiple personality disorder.)

KH: What character from IDC is the most difficult to voice? What character is the most fun for you to narrate?

LD: Sometimes the Morrigan could strain the ol’ vocal chords a bit. But I tried to create her sound from a looseness in my throat, as opposed to tension and clamping down on things, because that can lead to strain and damage. As for the character that is the most fun? Really, Special-K? Ya gotta ask!? I think we alllllllllll know that our big, furry friend gives me a particularly potent delight. But I will say, even though there hasn’t been much of him, yet, I looooooooove monsieur Loki. I think the IDCers need to demand an Oberon novella, AND I would like a Loki novella. In first person. Holy shnikes! Do you know how awesome that would be!? So there ya go. More work for you. You’re welcome.

KH: You narrate other work, of course, besides the IDC. What’s coming up for you soon? What should people look for?

LD: Ooooooooooo! Lots of goodies! I’ve got a Lauren D Estleman novel coming out called THE CONFESSIONS OF AL CAPONE. Fabulous book! Plus I get to play an aging, syphillitic Al Capone, as well as narrate several chapters from his perspective! So there’s that. Lets see, there’s a lil’ book called HUNTED… OH! And I’ve got a Dean Koontz kids’ book called Oddkins coming out! That one was a blast and I’m particularly proud of the voices. Think Toy Story meets The Fantastic Mr.Fox. I’m also getting ready to record a new zombie series called Rise of the Horde by Devan Sagliani. Aaaaaaand there’s another couple cool series I do in addition to IDC if ya wants some fun summer listening and ya hate having to wait for more Atticus and Oberon. Speaking of Atticus, I do the Atticus Fish series by Sean Morey, starting with Wahoo Rhapsody, which I won an Earphones Award for. And the Edward series from Craig Lancaster starting with 600 hours of Edward, which I won an Earphones Award for. I also did a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s unpublished short stories, for which I won an Earphones Award, as well. (Can you sense my head swelling to ridiculous proportions?) If you like mystery there’s the Mathew Hope series by Ed McBain. Now that dude could write. If you like Sci-Fi I’ve done a bunch of PK Dick, but my fave was DEUS IRAE which he wrote with Roger Zelazny. Oh! and I can’t forget the Jason Kolarich series by David Ellis. Just finished recording his latest and it may be my favorite so far. There’s the Mongoliad series with many different “sidequests” (which are novellas within the mongoliad universe). The Dead Man series is good, gritty horror. Plus I like that they are short story collections cause you get a lot of different great authors in one package. I’ll be recording volume 5 in July. (I especially like them because my brother James Daniels wrote a couple, AND he narrates them. So you can hear both of us on the same audiobook!) Oh I could go on and on… Is anyone even still reading at this point!? Kevin! Hey, Kevin!! Put down those boar sausages! We’re trying to do an interview here!

KH: Sausages down. Cool! And will you tell us a bit about this short you’ve recorded for Audiobook Month?

LD: Undoubtedly! It’s for a great cause! Child literacy! Going Public in Shorts is the brainchild of Xe Sands, a fabulous narrator and producer. I am very lucky to be invited in with so much incredible talent. All the narrators involved were asked to pick a short story from the public domain and produce it. Then it will be released as a collection and all proceeds go to Reach Out and Read. For my story, I picked a kewl fairy tale from Andrew Lang’s Orange Fairy book. Complete with talking toads, lion fairies, a dashing prince, a cunning princess, a noble queen, sea serpents, Magic and some pretty trippy locales. Enjoy!

KH: Thanks again, Luke. Looking forward to your future work!

LD: Let me just say… Thank you, Kevin. You really are a rare and fantastic author. I am honored to work with you. Now c’mon over here an give Oberon a big sloppy kiss!

KH: DOG PILE!

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Beer and Book winners

You guys are, once again, amazingly spiffy people. I loved all the entries! Thank you for having fun with this!

I wish I could afford to give you all a book for taking the trouble to enter, but alas! We have to limit things. First, the random winners as chosen by Random.org—I just assigned entries a number, 1-172, and then Random.org sequenced them. I used the top 3 numbers it gave me: 90, 123, 129. Those numbers belong to Beth Romero, Ian Akers, and Kevin Heaton! Congratulations! Please email me your address and I’ll send you a signed copy of HUNTED!

I said in the rules I’d pick two winners myself, but I couldn’t help it—I picked three. I love these so much…and I suppose the common theme is that they’re all set outdoors. Go figure, right? But they’re also very well composed and shot…just really good photography here. As with the random winners, if you’re one of the chosen winners, email me your address and I’ll send you a signed copy of HUNTED! The first winner actually came in the first batch of entries. Congratulations to Sam Pennell for this gem with an eBook o’ Butcher:

beer15SamPennell

Next up is Jill Baum’s beautiful Still Life with Kim Harrison’s work:

beer86JillBaum

And this is just brilliant stuff by Theresa Brundage, giving us a themed Still Life with LAMB, an apple, and a serpent in the garden…

beer46TheresaBrundage

There were some other very clever themed shoots—the zombie one was great, and then there were some awesome shrines to Jim Butcher and Anne McCaffrey and so on. Congrats and many thanks again to everyone who participated! Woohoo!

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summer traveling

Hunted final coverI like meeting people and seeing the country, so having a book come out is a great excuse to do both. When HUNTED is released later this month, I’ll be touring the west coast and a bit of Colorado. Why there? Because I haven’t been to the west coast yet. Last summer I did the south and I’ve been back east a few times, but I haven’t visited the west coast at all except for San Diego Comic Con, and that’s a tough ticket to snag for most people.

If you don’t see a town near you listed below, I’m very sorry! It’s not that I don’t want to see you, it’s that there is only so much time I can take off from writing and I don’t have an infinite bank account. Touring isn’t cheap and in fact is usually a net loss for almost everyone except the readers—and that, after all, is why we do it: to thank the readers. I wrote a couple of  blog posts on the economics of tours, so please read this one and this one before kindly suggesting that I come to your town. While I dearly wish I could see everyone, it’s just not possible.

But getting a signed copy of any of my books is possible for everyone! You can even get a signed copy of HUNTED the week it releases! An independent bookstore near me—The Poisoned Pen—will ship signed copies anywhere in the world. They are taking orders now and I will sign your copy before I leave on tour. Get clicky on this link and you’re on your way. (Signed copies make great gifts for the Oberon fan in your life, by the way…)

Arizona peeps can get HUNTED two days early! Yep. It’s a special event approved by Del Rey. Gotta show up in person, but there will be booze and books and awww yeeeaah.

Sunday, June 23, 5 PM: Pre-release party at Nando’s Hideaway! 6715 E. McDowell Rd in Mesa. No reservations or tickets needed! Just show up! $15 gets you a book and a drink (draft, bottle, or house margarita, or soda or tea), tax and gratuity included. I’ll sign your book(s), chat, and get my drank on. You are, of course, welcome to hang around, have dinner, more drinks, etc. Once I’ve signed stuff I can give you a heads-up on what’s coming next.

Tuesday, June 25, 7:30 PM: Mysterious Galaxy in Redondo Beach. 2810 Artesia Blvd, Redondo Beach, CA, 90278.
Wednesday, June 26, 7:30 PM: Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park. 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, CA 94025.
Thursday, June 27, 7 PM: Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma. 140 Kentucky Street, Petaluma, CA 94952.
Friday, June 28, 7:30 PM: The Avid Reader in Davis. 617 Second St. Davis, CA 95616
Sunday, June 30, 4 PM: Escape Fiction Books, in Salem, OR. 3240 Triangle Dr. SE, 97302.
Monday, July 1, 7 PM: Powell’s Books, Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton (near Portland). 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd. Beaverton, OR 97005
Tuesday, July 2, 7 pm: University Bookstore in Seattle. 4326 University Way NE, Seattle, WA, 98105.

I’m going to disappear for the days surrounding the 4th o’ July, huggin’ the everlovin’ shit out of some trees, but I’ll have three appearances afterward:

Sunday, July 7, 6 pm: Montana Brewing Company in Billings, MT. 113 N Broadway Billings, MT 59101. This is an informal get-together because I couldn’t find a bookstore to host me. So: I’ll be having a beer in the bar. You’re welcome to come on by and hang out. If you want anything signed, I’ll be happy to do so, but please bring it with you because I won’t be selling anything, just visiting and chatting. Please help me surprise the hell out of the bar and bring everyone you know.
Monday, July 8, 6:30 pm: Old Firehouse Books in Ft. Collins, CO. 232 Walnut St., Fort Collins, CO 80524.
Wednesday, July 10, 7 pm: Broadway Book Mall, 200 S. Broadway, Denver, CO 80209

So that’s the official tour, but not the end of opportunities to see me! I can has conventions and other stuffs…

July 18-21, San Diego Comic Con! 

Saturday, July 27, 4:30 pm: Murder by the Book in Houston, Texas! I’ll be signing the CARNIEPUNK anthology with fellow contributors Jaye Wells, Nicole Peeler, Delilah S. Dawson, and Mark Henry!

Tuesday, July 30, 7 pm: Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego! 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Suite #302, San Diego, 92111. I will be appearing jointly with Jason Hough, a new sci-fi genius whose debut, THE DARWIN ELEVATOR, simply blew my shit up. I got to read it early; this is his release day, so it will be your first chance to have your shit blown up too. If you have to miss me at Comic Con, please come to this, say hi, and meet Jason before he’s so famous you have to buy tickets to see him. I will, of course, be signing HUNTED and anything else you’d like.

August 29-September 2: WorldCon in San Antonio! Also known as LoneStar Con 3. Dudes, I have never been to one of these. Mostly I will be wandering around being starstruck. I don’t think I’m on any panels or anything. I’ll probably be hanging out in the bar a lot. And you can stalk me on Twitter. I’ll be the guy taking pictures of author Chuck Wendig and tweeting LOOK I FOUND CHUCK WENDIG IN THE WILD.

Dearly hope to see you and all the people you can drag along with you. And if I’m not in your neighborhood this year, I hope I’ll get somewhere nearby eventually when circumstances allow. Thank you so much for reading!

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Iron Druid Tattoos!

I’ve had a fair number of requests to provide a detailed design for the Iron Druid tattoos, not only for cosplay but for people who might consider getting them for real. Well, here you go! Many thanks to Phil Balsman at Odin Star Industries for drawing these up.

We don’t have the full body design here, but we have the arm stuff, which is what most people would see and cosplay. I do have a schematic for the whole body where there is a different sequence of knotwork for all the stuff a Druid can do, but getting it done would be costly and time-consuming when very few people would actually use it. I have high hopes, however, that I’ll see some of this in cosplay at conventions in the future. :)

You are free to print out and use the designs below however you wish. If you print them out on temporary tattoo paper you’ll be all set. I’ve provided the shapeshifting forms for Atticus only, and if there is significant demand I might provide the forms for Granuaile as well. If you’re so inclined, now that you’ve seen the style you can of course design your own zoomorphic forms to suit you.

I will place smaller jpegs below, but for printing purposes, please download this PDF file.

First, here’s a diagram showing how the tattoos should be placed:

Tattoo_diagram

Next, we have the strip falling down from the top of the shoulder and the transition curve to the shape-shifting bands that wrap around the biceps:

Bands__freeform

Here’s all the fun: The shape-shifting bands. This will require some adjustment depending on the diameter of your arm. However, we’ve included another band of the default shapeshifting pattern to fill in as needed. When you first transition from the shoulder you’ll probably find that the human form kind of disappears into your armpit, but hopefully you can work things so that the four animals appear on the outside of the arm. Use that extra default pattern to fill in!

zoomorphic

Lastly, you have the planeshifting knots down the forearm and the healing triskele on the back of the hand. The transition curve from shapeshifting to planeshifting can be found on the first page of designs. We have two strips of the planeshifting knotwork to allow for shorter or longer forearms. And then we’ve provided the triskele by itself and with the transition to the planeshifting knots.

plane_shift

Happy cosplay!

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Still Life with Beer and Book

This is a fun contest thingie. :) The prize is a signed early copy of HUNTED. I have five o’ those to give away and it’s an international contest. I’ll send you a signed Oberon bookmark too!

Photo contests are spiffy because everybody likes looking at the entries afterward. We’ve done the Iron Pet contest and Nerdscapes and we even did this one where we took pictures of sausage, but I don’t want to repeat myself so we gotta do something else. I’ll give you one guess what we’ll do. But first I will point you to the blog post title.

The Rules:

1) You’re required to have fun!
2) Send your entry as a jpeg to kevin@kevinhearne.com. Entries sent via Twitter or Facebook will not be counted. Include your name in your email. If you want me to call you Sparkly Puffypants that’s fine, I just want to give credit for the photo so that in case you win I can say HEY SPARKLY PUFFYPANTS, YOU WON!
3) Your still life must have a beer and a book. Anything else is a bonus.
a) Wine doesn’t count. Nor do wine coolers or harrrrrd likker! or whatever. This is a Beer & Book still life.
b) Yeah, you should probably be 21 to enter. Because you might have to acquire beer.
c) This isn’t about beer snobbery, though! If you have a Pabst or whatever that’s totally cool. This is about art and life and enjoying them. Don’t feel like you have to find the One True Beer or anything. (On the other hand, a quest for the One True Beer sounds pretty fun.)
c) The book must NOT be one of mine. I already know you read my books or you would have no interest in entering this contest. I—and everyone else—would really like to see what’s your top recommendation right now outside of Atticus n’ Oberon. :)
d) You can use a hardcover, paperback, or ebook. If the latter, then please set your ereader screen to the cover of the book so we can clearly see what you’re reading. The cover/title/author need to be visible.
e) Totally cool to have other books in there besides the one you’re focusing on, but again, please, no Iron Druid stuff. Seriously. And of course you can have dogs and lizards and weeping angels and whatnot.

Ready for my examples, which often pale compared to the entries you guys send in…? Here’s the first one:

beerandbook1That’s Jamaica Red Ale with The Darwin Elevator by Jason M. Hough. Also my Twenty-Sided Dice Fez and a bottle opener from Ommegang Brewery in New York. Can’t recommend Jason’s work enough; in fact, if you look closely, you’ll see I wrote the blurb at the top of the cover. It comes out July 30, so I’d say pre-order that puppy now and prepare to have your shit blown up. Greatest sci-fi I’ve read in years!

Okay, here’s one with my ereader. I rock a Nook SimpleTouch.

beerandbook2That’s Oberon Ale from Bell’s Brewery in Comstock, Michigan. There’s also something cute and fluffy there and IT’S SO FLUFFY but I can’t for the life of me explain why it’s in my house. The book is Mockingbird by Chuck Wendig. I’m about to dive into that because I read his first book starring Miriam Black (called Blackbirds) and really liked it. Chuck’s a lot of fun to follow on Twitter if you’re not already doing so (@ChuckWendig) and his blog is balls rad too.

Deadline for entries is Sunday, June 9. I’ll post ’em all up on my Facebook page each day as they come in and you can like the heck out of ’em and get giant lists of beer and books to try out. And maybe win stuff. :)

I’ll pick two winners by somewhat arbitrary standards of coolness but generally skewing toward photographic quality. Between my two example pics, the second one would win in my eyes because it’s in a bit sharper focus. I’ll also pick three winners randomly, so you have a chance of winning no matter what. I’ll announce winners on June 10.

I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with! And as always, thanks for reading!

 

 

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Audio Miscellany

From time to time I get questions about the audio situation overseas, so here we go—all the answers. Like, ridiculously detailed stuff you probably didn’t want to know. But when people ask WHY THIS and WHY THAT and I say IT’S COMPLICATED they’re like BRING IT, SON, so here we go.

When audio rights to the Iron Druid Chronicles were first sold to Brilliance Audio, they bought North Amercian rights only, which means they could legally sell the English recordings only in the United States and Canada. Due to a rather large mistake, they told their distribution peeps they had World Rights, so they pushed it out in the UK and Australia and…yeah, the whole world. We were selling copies in South Africa. I didn’t find out about it for close to a year because I don’t check overseas vendors, and on the one hand, I was like, “Cool, people dig it in that country with the posh accent! Nice!” But on the other hand, it’s unwise to let people overreach on contracts. So I asked my agent to send Brilliance a polite wtf, and they politely said oh crap we didn’t mean to do that, and they took it down overseas.

But they couldn’t just buy World Rights and carry on—because while we didn’t know what was going on over there, we wound up giving UK territory rights to Orbit in the meantime, so once the audiobooks came down, they didn’t go back up. Notice that we only gave UK rights to Orbit…not Australia and New Zealand, also known as ANZ. That’s because the paper books of 1-3 were published by a third publisher, Harper Collins. Harper Collins never wanted audio rights, so at that point nobody had the rights to sell audio in ANZ. We couldn’t give ANZ audio rights to Orbit UK because audio is a subsidiary right and Orbit doesn’t publish books 1-3 in ANZ.

Still with me? Because I might have lost myself. To recap things to this point: Brilliance has NA rights for 1-3, Orbit has UK rights but no recording, and nobody has ANZ rights. Except consumers in the UK and ANZ did have access to the NA audiobooks for a while due to an error. You can imagine the emails I was getting for a good year or so there. I didn’t have any good answers for people who wanted to know where Atticus and Oberon went. I didn’t know when or even if things would eventually work out.

So: The second book contract for books 4-6 comes along, and we do things differently. North American rights are sold to Random House, not Brilliance. Luke Daniels continues as narrator, it’s just a different audio publisher. In this contract we don’t do CDs because it’s a dying medium. So if you’re waiting for CDs—I get emails about that too—I’m very sorry, they’re never coming. Everything will be digital only going forward.

UK and ANZ audio rights for books 4-6 were all given to Orbit UK, and Harper Collins was out of the picture. But we still had this situation where no one had ANZ audio rights for books 1-3, and Orbit understandably didn’t want to publish books 4-6 if 1-3 weren’t available there. GAH. So Brilliance did us a solid and stepped up to buy ANZ rights for 1-3 since they made the Worldwide Mistake earlier. Truly very cool of them—they didn’t have to do that.

OK. Awesome. We finally have a situation where Orbit can consider developing audio overseas, and so they’re doing it! YAY! But UK publishers in general—not just Orbit—tend to like doing their own versions of audiobooks—and the same is true of US publishers. If there’s a UK audiobook out there they want to publish here, they’ll probably record their own version for US audiences. Very common. So Orbit UK is recording books 1-6 with a different narrator named Christopher Ragland—solid dude—and they’ll all come out pretty quickly leading up to the release of Hunted in late June. Hounded is out now! I’m turbo happy that we can finally get you audio of the Iron Druid Chronicles overseas!

But there’s a coda for ANZ: Because of the bizarre rights situation, ANZ will have access to the Brilliance recording of Luke Daniels for books 1-3 and the Orbit recording of Christopher Ragland for books 4-6. And no, I can’t fix that so you get all Luke or all Christopher. Sorry. I know that a change in narrators isn’t ideal but hopefully it’s better than nothing.

As bureaucrats on trial are fond of saying, “Mistakes were made.” If we had a TARDIS and could get all timey-wimey and re-do contracts we would, but alas. We’ll just have to travel through time in a linear fashion and deal with it.

The final situation for books 1-6:

North America: Luke Daniels
UK: Christopher Ragland
ANZ: Luke for 1-3, Chris for 4-6.

Keep in mind that only Hounded is available in the UK at this time of this post, but the others are in the pipeline and will be released soon. Same goes for ANZ—if it’s not up yet, it will be soon. Happy listening wherever ye may be; I hope you enjoy the stories!

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Upcoming Awesome

People ask me every so often what to read while they’re waiting for more Atticus n’ Oberon and I do have a list of good stuff on my FAQs page if you’d like to check it out. You’ll also find a series chronology there in case you were wondering how all the short stories and novellas fit in with the books.

But I’d like to put a few upcoming books on your radar. They’re all available for pre-order wherever you buy books, and hell yes I’ve pre-ordered them myself. Going in order of release date:

tempest rebornTempest Reborn by Nicole Peeler is the sixth and final book of her series, coming out soon on May 28. Jane True is a selkie—not your normal badass, and in fact she’s a reluctant fighter, which I love—and these books are full of mythology and fun. Peeler gets me laughing out loud several times per book. Her first one, Tempest Rising, is on sale for cheap as an eBook, so there’s very little risk in giving her a try and if you like ’em you can mow through the whole series before the month is up! I feel I should offer up a horrid pun here…um. DIVE INTO ADVENTURE WITH A SELKIE

Jason M. Hough is going to have three books come out this year, bam-bam-bam, the way I did back in 2011. Same publisher as me and they’re giving him the same support, which should tell you how much they believe in him. I am also supporting him however I can because I’ve already read these and it’s the most entertaining sci-fi I’ve read in years. I want Jason to do well for entirely selfish reasons: If he sells enough books then he gets to keep writing them, and I cannot wait for this guy to write more books.

The Darwin Elevator comes out July 30; The Exodus Towers on August 27; and The Plague Forge on September 25. Here’s what I wrote about the first book:  “The best part about alien stories is their mystery, and Jason M. Hough understands that like no other. Full of compelling characters and thick with tension, The Darwin Elevator delivers both despair and hope along with a gigantic dose of wonder. It’s a brilliant debut and Hough can take my money whenever he writes anything from now on.” Yeah, I’m completely sold.

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If you’d like to meet me and Jason, we’ll be in San Diego together on his release day, July 30, at Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego at 7 pm.

dirty magicUnstoppable force of nature Jaye Wells is launching a new series called Prospero’s War after the conclusion of her successful Sabina Kane series. The first book, Dirty Magic, doesn’t come out until January 21, 2014, so if you pre-order now you will get an awesome surprise next year. As you can probably guess by the cover, this series has quite a bit to do with alchemy and potions and a protagonist who wishes everyone would stop playing around with that dangerous shit. Well, I thought it was five kinds of cool and I wrote a blurb for it as well: “Kate Prospero is my new favorite heroine—imperfect, haunted, driven, and dangerous.”

So there you go! Please give ’em love! I have a book coming out at the end of June, but I’m sure you guys knew that already. :) If you can’t make it to one of my tour stops then you can order a signed copy from The Poisoned Pen now, I’ll sign ’em before I go on tour, and they’ll ship it to you on release day. Rock on!

Blog, Publishing Stuff

The Economics of Tours 2

This is a much-delayed and overdue companion piece to the post I did back in November called The Economics of Tours. That first post spoke of why it’s not so easy for an author or a publisher to set up big sprawling tours—it costs a lot of money to travel, basically, and not enough people show up and buy books to justify the expense.

But hiding on the other side of that coin are the bookstores where events are to be held. Holding a signing is not without its own set of economic risks and headaches. And again, since most people are probably unaware, I’m sharing some basic math in the interest of being helpful, to foster understanding of why a bookstore might not wish to hold events sometimes, and appreciate those indie stores who go out of their way to hold lots of events every year.

Bookstores generally buy books from publishers for 60% of the cover price—or, if you want to look at it a different way, at a 40% discount. Let’s break down a paperback and a hardcover sale and eventually get around to what this means for touring and events.

Most paperbacks are $7.99, unless you have one of those slightly larger ones that are $9.99 and annoying to hold, but let’s go with the $8 example. On an eight-dollar book, the bookstore “keeps” $3.20. That’s if it doesn’t give you a discount or a coupon or anything.

On a $25 hardcover—and I know hardcovers vary somewhat in price, but the math is super easy at $25 so let’s just go with it—the bookstore keeps $10 if it doesn’t discount.

So right there, without going any further, you can see that any rational business person would prefer to sell hardcovers to paperbacks because they make almost three times as much money per unit. To put it another way, a bookstore has to sell three paperbacks to equal one hardcover sale. That has a profound impact on signing events.

Depending on the author, the book, the day of the week, the time of the event, and even the weather, signings tend to draw anywhere from one person to a hundred. Really big authors will draw more, of course—they’ll have seven-hour lines and maybe bathe in Courvoisier afterward—but most signings draw fewer than a hundred people in a big city. Seriously. Plenty of signings are below fifty.

Let us, however, for the sake o’ easy math, say we sell fifty books at each signing. A bookstore would make $160 if those were paperbacks, and $500 if those were the aforementioned $25 hardcovers—provided they haven’t discounted anything. But wait! They don’t actually get to keep all that!

Say you have two employees in the store. Just two. The event lasts two hours, often three, and sometimes the events go past closing time so it’s not like we’re always talking normal business hours here. The employees are paid, what, I don’t know, maybe $10 an hour? I’m afraid to ask, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was more or less, honestly, and there are taxes and health insurance and OMG, but I’m trying to keep this simple. So two employees at $30 for three hours eats up $60 of that money. Then there’s the overhead for the bricks and mortar—lights and computers and things. And sweet deity of your choice, they pay credit card companies 8-10% per transaction! And they have marketing costs to advertise the event—signage and newsletters to subscribers and website gurus to do webby things and all the goodies they have to do to coax fifty people in a metro area of one or two million to show up. Thus, if you’re a paperback author selling fifty copies and only bringing in $160 minus a buttload of expenses for the bookstore—even less if they give the customers any kind of discount—there is so little margin there that it’s hardly worth the time and effort to do all that. In fact, there’s a very real risk that the bookstore will LOSE MONEY on the event if the turnout is low, and as I hope I have intimated clearly, turnout is often low. Or you’ll have 75 people show up but only 40 copies get sold because 35 people inexplicably believe it’s polite to show up and not buy anything—they’ll bring in copies they bought elsewhere and contribute absolutely nothing to the local store that has gone to the trouble and expense of hosting the author.

The Poisoned Pen_outsideI know my math is very basic and the devil’s in the details, and I know some indie stores have figured out how to do events well and come out ahead. They build massive mailing lists and do a ton of events and become a vibrant part of the city’s culture. The Poisoned Pen, for example, my local store, does more than 300 events a year. But many stores—especially in smaller cities without a giant mailing list—can’t shoulder the risk of a paperback event and have to turn some authors away. (Yes, even ones that sell pretty well.) And the vast number of indie bookstores that have closed over the past decade demonstrates that figuring out how to do events well (or how to sell paper books, period) is easier said than done.

With hardcover numbers, of course, there’s much more room for error. And that’s why bookstores would vastly prefer to host a hardcover author than a paperback one. At a hardcover event they can pray for a good night whereas with a paperback event they’re praying to break even.

There is probably a desperate plea in here to support your local independent bookstore—yes, please do that if you are lucky enough to have one!—but that’s not why I wrote this post. I wrote it to help people understand why it’s not so simple for me (and most authors) to come visit you wherever you are. There are not only economic limits to what authors can do but limits to what bookstores can do as well. It’s not that authors despise smaller cities or certain regions of the country or tiny island nations, and it’s not as if bookstore owners are actively trying to deny their communities access to authors. It’s that book signings are risky undertakings even in major cities, and everybody has to pay bills. In truth, the only reason you will ever see a signing by someone who isn’t a gigantic superstar is that bookstores love bringing authors and readers together. It’s never a sure thing that a signing will work out but they take the risk anyway and hope it will turn out okay. That’s why I love indies.

I am turbo grateful to the indie stores that have let me come by so far and to those who will be hosting me this summer, and super-turbo grateful to the readers who take the trouble to come out and see me and support those stores. I do wish I could see everyone—and I think most authors of a sociable bent would feel the same way—but yeah, for innumerable reasons, it’s just not possible. Like the famous eHarmony cat lady, I love my readers, I want to hug you all and I want you in a basket, so please don’t feel slighted if I (or another writer you dig) can’t make it to your neighborhood soon. We totally would if we could.

Blog, Publishing Stuff

Special promos and stuff

Gadzooks, a bunch o’ stuff is happening! I’ve mentioned a lot of this stuff separately somewhere in the land o’ social media, but I figured I should collect it all in one post. Here we go:

1) For a limited time, the eBook of HOUNDED is only $2.99 in the USA! If you’ve been wanting to get some friends or family hooked on IDC so you can trade Oberon quotes with them, here’s your chance! Kindle, Nook, whatever…it’s $2.99 until May 3!

2) My next big public thingie is Phoenix Comicon May 23-26. Incredible lineup of authors and other famous peeps there. But kind of blown away that there will be a hardcover, con-only special edition of UNFETTERED available, featuring stories by Terry Brooks, Brandon Sanderson, Peter Orullian, and myself. Only 250 copies will be printed, and we’ll all be there at the con—in fact, there will be an UNFETTERED panel!—so you could have a signed, turbo-rare edition if you want. Ain’t gonna lie: I WANT.

3) I don’t consider myself a guru of writing wisdom or anything—if I was a genius, I would have figured stuff out a lot sooner than I did. But I said a few things on Twitter yesterday in an effort to render what assistance I can. I collected it on Storify and if you’re an aspiring writer I hope it helps! Speaking of Storify, I really dig it. I’ll be collecting more Twitter conversations, blog posts and the like there, so if you’d like to give me a follow you won’t miss any of my shenanigans. You can go through and check out past Stories too.

4) If you want to say hi and get a signed copy of HUNTED this summer, there are OODLES of ways to do that. First, check out my tour dates—I’m visiting California, Portland, Seattle, and a couple o’ places in Colorado and would love to see you! If you’re not nearby one of those places, however, you still have options! First is a special early release shindig on Sunday, June 23, at 5 pm at Nando’s Mexican Cafe in Mesa. No reservation needed—just show up! $15 gets you a book and a drink and we’ll hang out. Extra copies for friends are $8.50. If you’re on the east coast or out of the country, you can preorder a signed copy from The Poisoned Pen by giving them a call or using their website. I will sign all preordered copies before I take off for the tour, and they’ll ship it to you wherever you are, military addresses included!

5) There are still ten tickets left for Atticus & Oberon’s Elevator Ride! It’s a Taco Hootenanny in Encinitas, CA at the end of July with me and new sci-fi genius Jason Hough. You’ll get signed copies of both our books, a pint glass, lots o’ food and lots of love when you hang out with us!

6) If you missed it, I have an Iron Druid novella coming out May 7 called GRIMOIRE OF THE LAMB. Atticus & Oberon go to Egypt! FUN!

In writing news, I’m about halfway through the first draft of book seven, SHATTERED, and hope to have it finished before I go on tour for HUNTED. We’ll see!

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Grimoire of the Lamb!

It’s finally ready—GRIMOIRE OF THE LAMB will be released May 7! Less than a month until a new Iron Druid adventure! WOOHOO! Here’s the spiffy US cover:

Art by Gene Mollica and design by Dave Stephenson.
Art by Gene Mollica and design by Dave Stephenson.

This is an eBook novella on sale at Amazon, B&N, Kobo, iBooks, etc., for $2.99. It’ll be available in the UK, Australia, and affiliated territories too, albeit with a different cover, and I believe (but haven’t confirmed) that it will be on audio too in the US & Canada. Keep checking with Audible on that. Pre-order is now available for Kindle, Nook, and iBooks, and should appear on the Kobo site as well in the next day or two. Thank you in advance for reading!

Oh yeah: There’s a preview of HUNTED included in the back!

So what’s this about? Here’s the “back cover” copy Del Rey wrote up:

When he’s not vanquishing villainous gods or dodging demons, two-thousand-year-old Druid Atticus O’Sullivan can be found behind the counter of Third Eye Books and Herbs in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, literally minding his own business. But when an evil sorcerer—and amateur shoplifter—snatches an ancient Egyptian tome of black magic, The Grimoire of the Lamb, Atticus is not sheepish about pursuing him to the ends of the earth . . . or at least to the Land of the Pharaohs.
 
Unfortunately, Atticus already has enemies in Egypt—including cat goddess Bast, who wants her own book of mischief back from the Druid. In the streets of Cairo, she sends a feline phalanx after Atticus and his Irish wolfhound, Oberon. With fur still flying, Atticus must locate the sorcerer’s secret lair—where he will face killer crocodiles, spooky sarcophagi, and an ancient evil Egyptian who’s determined to order the sacrificial lamb special tonight.

It’s set in 2005, four years before HOUNDED. Aenghus Óg hasn’t found him yet, Granuaile isn’t bartending at Rúla Búla, but we do get a cameo from the widow MacDonagh. Hope you dig it—please share and spread the word! Rock on—